A Montreal couple is reeling after they say they were attacked in front of their two young children.
On Saturday, April 5, the family says they were leaving a family gathering at a restaurant in Montreal’s Anjou borough when they say they were approached by two men in masks.
They have asked for anonymity as they continue to fear for their safety.
The mother, “Jane,” says she was putting her 11-month-old son into his car seat, as her four-year-old daughter stood by her side, when a “young man dressed in black” approached her and said, “hi, how are you?” in French.
“I immediately, for some reason, I don’t know why, said, ‘my husband is coming,’ and once I said that I saw him [the man] signal to somebody,” she said. “I don’t even know what I felt. I just knew that this was not good.”
Jane says that’s when she noticed a second man, also dressed in black, standing nearby.
Panicked, she says she threw both children into the car.
“I tried to hurdle my body into the car, and I tried to shut the door over my son’s seat, door not fully closed, hanging on for dear life, two fingers trying to keep that door shut,” she said.
Her husband, “John,” was just steps behind her, having stayed back an extra moment to say good-bye to an uncle.
“As I walked out of the restaurant, I see two men, one on the right side of my [vehicle] at the back, one on the left side, [which] was open, and I saw [Jane] crawl over my son’s car seat to get in, which is extremely out of the ordinary,” John tells CTV News.
The couple says that’s when the two masked men attacked John.
“He extended the baton, and then I knew I couldn’t chance it, I went on the attack right away. I grabbed him by the scruff, threw him on the ground, started laying into him for a bit and then the second guy came, and he started giving me a few,” he recalls. “We started exchanging for quite a while.”
Jane says she set off the car’s alarm and immediately called 911 as her husband single-handedly fended off the attackers.
“I started hearing my husband scream out for ‘help, help,‘” she said. “You don’t know in that moment…me and the kids in the car don’t know, is he screaming out for help because he’s injured?”
John says he continued fighting off the attackers until an employee from inside the restaurant came outside and demanded they stop.
After that, the men fled on foot.
“You see there’s a mother with two children, why even try anything at that moment?” asked Jane, in tears. “To think worst case scenario that they would have wanted the kids, or if my husband wasn’t there, you don’t even want to think of it as a parent.”
Montreal police (SPVM) confirmed to CTV News that it received several 911 calls at 8:55 p.m. last Saturday about the incident.
“The information that we have is somebody had been assaulted, and the people who assaulted him tried to steal from him,” said Véronique Dubuc, a spokesperson with Montreal police.
When officers arrived onsite, they say they located a victim with upper body injuries.
“There was more than one suspect in this event,” said Dubuc.
There have been no arrests, and the force is still working to determine the motive behind the incident.
The most distressing part of the whole ordeal, the couple says, is that their four-year-old witnessed the entire fight as it unfolded in front of her.
“She was like, ‘What’s happening? Where’s Daddy? Why is that happening to Daddy?’ And calling out, ‘Daddy, Daddy, why are they doing that?’ She kept saying, ‘this is my nightmare,‘” said Jane shakily.
The couple says their daughter is now showing signs of trauma.
“She doesn’t want to sleep in her room anymore,” said John.
“She’s gone to daycare and she’s always asking the educators, ‘Is Daddy OK?’ ‘Is Daddy OK?’ ‘Is Daddy home?’ ‘Is he OK?‘” said Jane. “She’ll carry this. You don’t know the kind of trauma that it might carry for her, and it’s unfair for her.”
The family says that after this traumatic experience, they will never bring the children anywhere alone again, even if they’re just heading to their car in front of a busy restaurant.
With files by CTV News’ Denise Roberts.
